37

A year ago today, I joined the gym near my house as a birthday present to myself.  My weight was spiraling out of control, my health was going down hill, and I felt I needed some intervention fast.  I started logging my food on My Fitness Pal, checking in here every so often, taking measurements once or twice a month.

I went to the gym every day except Sundays for several months, working my way up to 4 miles run/walking, plus lifting weights a couple of times a week.  At the end of August, I had the first of five endoscopies to deal with all my swallowing troubles, but it was just the beginning of a long health slide downward.  I went to a soft thick diet sometime in September, and haven't really gotten off it.  If anything, my options have grown smaller and smaller.  These days, I'm managing only a handful of things, usually with difficulty and stress.

With my nutrition so severely compromised, I found by late October that I no longer had the energy to get up at 4:30 and be to the gym by 5:00 and run my 4 miles.  I was barely functional by the time I got home from school drop off.  I did try going back to the gym in the middle of the winter, but I was in the middle of a spinal virus relapse and my gross motor function was pretty bad at that point.  I slowly recovered from the relapse early this spring, but then Birdie was hospitalized and remained sick for a lot of the spring (as well as the other kids), so I had to put everything on hold for a few months.  I started back to the gym in late May, going every day for a couple of weeks, and then in early June, I had my fifth endoscopy with dilation, and I've not felt well enough to work out since.


As for stats, I have lost 25 pounds since last July, but I've more or less plateaued since January.  I've been gaining and losing the same 3-4 pounds since then, and my measurements have been more or less stable (I've lost around 17 inches).  What I wrote in January about it all still more or less applies.

I'm eating between 1600-1800 calories a day, depending on my activity level, but not really losing.  I had hoped to be at my first weight benchmark (27 pounds lost) long before now.  I'm really fighting for those two pounds.  I realize 25 pounds is a goodly amount, but since I've had little progress (and some regression) in the last six months, it doesn't feel particularly sweet at the moment.  Right now, I have about 12 pounds to go before I hit my goal weight, but I try not to think beyond the next couple of pounds or I get overwhelmed.

So, today.  I'm 37 years old today, have started the long slide to menopause, and am still struggling with eating on many levels.  Mostly, I've forgotten how to eat, and I'm not sure where to start re-learning how, as things are still pretty dicey with both swallowing and the gastroparesis issues.  I'm going to keep fighting, because in the long run, I think it will help me feel better, but I have my days where I just wonder why I'm working so hard.  It is my cross to bear, part of the ascesis of my life.

“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” (F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby)

Yarn Along: Little Things

~knitting~

I finished a lot of little projects this week or so.  I started and finished a red cowl for Boo.  I had some cotton-wool mix in my stash that I had bought for something that I've forgotten by now, and it was such a little bit, it had to be something small.

His favorite color is red, so he was a happy camper.  The yarn is the now-retired Main Street Reserve from KnitPicks.  It is so soft and lovely to knit up.

This next piece I didn't technically knit recently; it was part of a sweater that I frogged over the winter.  I used the rest of the yarn to make my Rosemont cardigan, but I had this little piece from the back waistband of the original sweater (it was knit separately and then the top and back portions were cast on the edge) and I thought it would make a nice ear-warmer for Birdie.  She is always complaining of cold ears in the winter and often borrows something from my husband, so I figured she could use her own.  It is the Stockbridge yarn from Valley Yarns and I lurve it.

When Piglet saw me making Boo's cowl, he wanted one for himself.  (He said something along the lines of: "Boo gets all the red things, why don't I get anything red?")  I told him I didn't have enough red yarn left over to make him a whole red one, but I could do red and white stripes (I had several balls of snowy white Main Street Reserve as well)  He was happy with that, and I commenced lots of end cutting.  The worst part was weaving in all the ends!

I also finished my husband's neckwarmer and while he wasn't too keen to try in on in this heat wave, he did sort of oblige.  

Me: Will you please humor me and put it on so I can take a picture?

Him:

Me: Thank you, Cousin It.

I cast on a white cowl for Ponchik out of the leftovers from Piglet's cowl, and started working on my L'Enveloppe shrug-thingie.  I decided that the Sulka cardigan was not the best use of my bulky gray-blue yarn, and frogged it.  I cast on the L'Enveloppe, and I'm pretty excited about it.  So far, the knitting is pretty easy.  I'll try to photograph it when I'm further along.

~reading~

I think I reached Peak USSR sometime last week.  I just could not read another gulag memoir or read Svetlana Alexievich's stories of the desperate unhappiness, ethnic fighting, cultural vacuum, and poverty during the Yeltsin regime.  I do think it is important to bear witness to the history of the gulags, and the repression, and to try to understand it, so I feel like a bit of a coward for having to put some of my reading aside for the sake of my mental health. I did start reading Orlando Figes' The Whisperers, which I am finding well-written and good reading.  It covers private life during the Stalin years and as with many of Figes' books, it is quite comprehensive.  It is the sort of book I aspired to write when I was still working on my PhD in Soviet history.

I appreciate what Secondhand Time is trying to do, but it was really dragging me down.  I am half way through, and decided to set it aside for a bit.  I picked up The Fiery Cross again, after several months languishing.  I was about half way when I stopped last (I've lost track of how many times I've read the series), and it was really just the thing for my mood.

~watching~

I'm still waiting for PBS to post the final episode of Endeavour, Season 3.  I refuse to pay $3 for it on amazon when it is supposed to stream for free on pbs.

I finished Outlander season 2, and started back over at the beginning of volume 2 of season 1 to watch it again.  I find the episodes get even better with repeated viewing, as many of the layers in each episode are revealed.  I thought the season finale of season 2 was extremely well done.  I had one minor quibble with an aesthetic choice, but otherwise, I was happy with the adaptation.  Now we can get on to Voyager!

I started watching a Russian television series called The Red Queen on amazon prime and it is very very good.  It is set in the 1950s in the provinces, but quickly moves to Moscow.  It is a pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps kind of story, and I'm intrigued to see where it goes.  The dialogue is even slow enough in some places that I can catch some of the Russian without subtitles.  The subtitles have to be switched on with closed captioning, by the way.  It took me a bit to figure that out.

Linking up with Ginny for Yarn Along!

Talking Tuesday: History and Memory

A bit late today, but I wanted to share a great article about history and memory by Jonathan Sacks.  I think it works well with what I'm working on for the piece about Matthew B. Crawford's excellent book, The World Beyond Your Head.  In it, Crawford argues that from the so-called Enlightenment onward, we in the West moved from a pre-modern mindset that seeks objective truth outside oneself, in the world and beyond it, to find one's place in the larger history of the world and to submit one's will to the wisdom of those who've gone before, to a post-modern mindset that seeks nothing beyond the subjective reality of one's own mind and views any incursion of the outside world as a threat to one's self.  The self reduced to the sum total of its desires: the Platonic consumer.

I think this relates to Sacks' article because he argues first that we Westerners have been far to quick to discard our history and our memories, and that the distinction is important, as is the virtue that arises from knowing both.

In Standpoint, Sacks writes:

“I want tonight to look at one phenomenon that has shaped the West, leading it at first to greatness, but now to crisis. It can be summed up in one word: outsourcing. On the face of it, nothing could be more innocent or productive. It’s the basis of the modern economy. It’s Adam Smith’s division of labour and David Ricardo’s theory of comparative advantage that says, even if you are better than me at everything, still we both gain if you do what you’re best at and I do what I’m best at and we trade. The question is: are there limits? Are there things we can’t or shouldn’t outsource?

“The issue has arisen because of the new technologies and instantaneous global communication. So instead of outsourcing within an economy, we do it between economies. We’ve seen the outsourcing of production to low-wage countries. We’ve seen the outsourcing of services, so that you can be in one town in America, booking a hotel in another, unaware that your call is being taken in India. This seemed like a good idea at the time, as if the West was saying to the world: you do the producing and we’ll do the consuming. But is that sustainable in the long run?

“Then banks began to outsource risk, lending far beyond their capacities in the belief that either property prices would go on rising forever, or more significantly, if they crashed, it would be someone else’s problem, not mine.

“There is, though, one form of outsourcing that tends to be little noticed: the outsourcing of memory. Our computers and smartphones have developed larger and larger memories, from kilobytes to megabytes to gigabytes, while our memories, and those of our children have got smaller and smaller. In fact, why bother to remember anything these days if you can look it up in a microsecond on Google or Wikipedia?

“But here, I think, we made a mistake. We confused history and memory, which are not the same thing at all. History is an answer to the question, ‘What happened?’ Memory is an answer to the question, ‘Who am I?’ History is about facts, memory is about identity. History is his-story. It happened to someone else, not me. Memory is my story, the past that made me who I am, of whose legacy I am the guardian for the sake of generations yet to come. Without memory, there is no identity. And without identity, we are mere dust on the surface of infinity."

~Jonathan Sacks, "Rediscovering Our Moral Purpose", Standpoint Magazine online, July/August 2016 issue.

I read an excerpt of different article from Standpoint from the same issue that noted that our Western heritage is in danger of being forgotten as we engage in collective amnesia.  I think author Daniel Johnson overstates his case a tad, but he notes that 

"The diagnosis, surprisingly, is more complex than the cure. There are numerous viruses attacking the Western body politic, but only one medicine. To face the future unflinchingly, we must return to the past: listen to the patriarchs and prophets, the ancestral voices of our literature, break open the arsenal of our intellectual history, and mobilise the resources of righteous indignation against the dominions, principalities and powers of darkness that threaten to overwhelm us. The great books, from Homer to Shakespeare, from Plato to Pascal, from Dante to Bellow, must once again not only be assigned to every student, but learned where possible by heart. The music of the masters, from Gregorian chant to George Gershwin, from Sebastian Bach to James MacMillan, from Palestrina to Arvo Pärt, must not only float across the courts and quads of our colleges, but fill our airwaves and headsets."

~Daniel Johnson, "What Made the West Great Is What Will Save Us", Standpoint Magazine online, July/August 2016 issue.

I've noticed that the more I think about our post modern world, and how to reclaim a pre-modern mindset, particularly in trying to disengage the notion of myself as primarily a consumer, rather than a child of God, the less time I have for popular culture, particularly music.  I occasionally enjoy a tune or two, but I don't want it to be to the mainstay of my aural diet.  It feels like the aural equivalent of living on gummy bears.  I find myself craving substance in the music I listen to, and am drawn to the storytelling style of folk music, as it speaks of past events, of history and memory, bound up in melodies that stay with you, become part of you.  (There is also liturgical music, but I put that in a different category).  I also live with a lot more silence than I used to.  

I suppose having a sort of physical ascesis forced on me by circumstance has brought me to a place of somewhat more restraint in terms of what I want to live on in my soul.  I am drawn to books and programs and movies that explore the truth of the human condition out there, and particularly ones that acknowledge the extra dimensionality of the spiritual.  I know I keep banging on about episode seven of the BBC's War and Peace, but it really blew me away.  The book also has several other scenes of immense truth and spiritual beauty that I keep returning to in my mind.  In season two of Outlander, episode seven (what is it about seven??) was breathtakingly, heartbreakingly beautiful and spoke so much truth to me about loss in motherhood, about the challenges that face a marriage in the face of that loss, and what comes next.  The book is even more intensely beautiful.  

I continue to work through my thoughts on Crawford.  I wrote several more pages last week, and have a rough first draft, but after several days' thinking, it feels like a rubbish first draft, so I may scrap it and start again.  I can't really decide how to tackle what I want to say; I'll get there eventually.  I keep telling myself to be patient, let it marinate.  I keep talking with different friends about various aspects of the book and related reading I've been doing, and that helps me to refine my thoughts as well.

~wiws~ Blueberry dress

I present: The Blueberry dress.  I almost didn't blog it, because it is so plain and boring.  But I'm wearing it, so I guess I'd better.  

It was a quick make earlier this week, out of Robert Kaufman's lawn in royal.  I was expecting a more saturated royal blue, but the color is almost exactly the color of ripe blueberries.  Hence the name.  It works, but I worried that it would look a little uniform-like.  I guess that doesn't matter.

I wasn't planning to take photos this morning, so I've been running around like a headless chicken doing stuff for our parish's feast day and generally trying to get everyone ready for church and such.  So, wrinkles.

I made inseam pockets on this dress, and I wish I'd made them just a bit higher.  I put them at the height of the patch pockets, but I failed to account for the fact that the top of the inseam pocket is quite long, and I should have made the bottom of the pocket line up with the patch pocket pattern marks.  Oh well.  They are still plenty functional, I just have to reach a bit to get to the bottom.

The dress is quite improved by bright accessories, I will say.  It was looking rather blah before I added this coral necklace.  

I got new glasses last month.  I've been wearing bifocals for 30 years, and the optometrist said I can finally go to plain ol' readers.  So I hopped off to CVS and picked up a $20 pair.  Not too shabby, I think!  I bought a second pair at Rite Aid a week later because I'm finding that I take these off somewhere in the house around dinner time, and then when I'm wanting to read in bed on the 3rd floor, I have to go hunting for them.  I keep the second pair next to my bed on my reading stack--it works quite nicely!

The shoes don't quite go, I think, but I'm sort of too hot to care.  It has been a difficult week, between the random water shut-offs (Friday it was off for almost 6 hours and it was 94 degrees outside with high humidity), the heat and humidity, the kids' resultant poor behavior and sleeping, and so forth.  My husband has been away a lot this week (he is back now), and that is always hard on me.

Our parish feast day is tomorrow (St. Elizabeth the New Martyr) as is Birdie's namesday, so we have a bit of busy coming up.  Miles to go before I sleep.

Talking Tuesday: Loving the Family

I know I promised a Crawford-fest this month, but it is taking me longer to write than I anticipated.  I did bang out a few pages last week, but I'd prefer to write everything first, and then figure out how to split it up over several Talking Tuesdays.  This month has been busier than I thought it would be, even with the older three at camp.  I'm spending almost 2 hours a day in the car with the commute, and I forgot how much time that takes out of my morning and afternoon.  I'm also not feeling particularly well this month, so that has played a role as well.  My apologies, once again.  I suppose I will just say, I'll post it when I have it.

Instead, I'd like to share a portion of a fantastic reflection from my friend Molly Sabourin.  She posts over at Grace Here and Now, and has a podcast on Ancient Faith Radio if you want to hear more from her.  I don't read her regularly, but I always find something to think about when I do.

"It is a profound responsibility to set the tone for a household. I am awed and humbled by my ability as a mother to create either a warm and forgiving familial climate or a stressed and divisive one, depending on my actions and example. I have witnessed countless times the contagiousness of my patience, or lack thereof. After seventeen years of parenting, I can verify that only out of connectedness, feeling heard and loved “as is”, flows true repentance and a desire to get back up and try again (and again and again) after stumbling."

~Molly Sabourin, "Go Home and Love Your Family," Grace Here and Now blog, July 11, 2016

Read the whole thing.

Alterations

I mentioned in my chambray skirt post that I had overfitted it, and the skirt was slightly snug.  Turns out, it just didn't fit.  The back seam started pulling after a couple of wears and I knew I needed to alter it if I wanted to continue to wear it.  I tackled the project this Saturday, which involved unpicking some of the top stitching and taking out the back seam (and zipper) to let it out.  This alteration worked well when my red twill skirt came out too snug initially, so I thought it would probably work.  I did *not* want to have to fiddle with my carefully placed darts.  My redrafted pattern has a pretty large seam allowance, so I had room to move things around.

I let out the back seam from 7/8" to 5/8", reinserted the zipper, sewed the waistband back up, and wore it the rest of Saturday.  I concluded that it was a bit too long (I think because I used the red twill skirt as my model for this skirt, all the problems with it echoed that skirt as well).  I took it up an inch and a quarter yesterday and I think it looks better now.  (And this is me, without a girdle, so I think the fit is better too).

I'm not in love with it, but I just don't have it in me to remake it this season.  I have at least two blouses that don't really go with anything else, so I kind of need to keep some kind of chambray or light denim in my closet for the summer.  I did find a rayon chambray skirt at Kohl's online that I ended up buying to try it out.  It has a nice a-line and buttons down the front, so we'll see what the final verdict is.  Sometimes that style of skirt feels perfect to me, and sometimes it just feels like frumpsville.

In other news, the water main/sewer work continues on our street, and over the weekend, one of the pipes sprung a leak down the street and has been leaking water down the street.  I called the Water Department yesterday when we got home from church, and they sent someone out about 2 hours later to take a look.   Then the water was off for an hour or so (right during dinner prep!), but they didn't do much else last night.  This morning, they were out there at 5:15 a.m. (!!!) punching up the sidewalk, making tons of construction noise, and generally being a nuisance.  Only to pack it up again by 6:00 a.m. and leave the water still running down the street.  It is a mess.  There are holes all up and down our street, dirt and concrete dust cover everything, and there is a trench that runs the length of the street that they dig up every day and put back again in the afternoon.

The contractors are supposed to get here by 7:00 a.m. so I'm hoping they can deal with whatever it going on.  I'll be glad when this whole thing is done--I don't mind the noise much as it is normally just between 7:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. and the parking hassle hasn't been too bad yet (but schools are out; we'll see what happens in the fall), but the random water shut offs are super stressful.  We never know when they will shut it off, or for how long.  I realized that while we could manage (albeit with difficulty) without electricity for some time, we really can't go for very long without running water here.  That makes me nervous on some level.  We are keeping buckets filled in the tub to manually flush the toilets if need be, and have been filling empty seltzer bottles and milk jugs with water to keep in the kitchen for use there.  

Makes me a bit nostalgic for Barskoon in Kyrgyzstan.  No running water, spotty electricity, dust everywhere, but such contentment.

Paintbrushes and Dottie Angel Frock Tips

At last, a post about Dottie Angel frock pattern adjustments and construction tips!  I'm sorry it took me so long to get to it.  This is rather a lengthy post, so go grab a cuppa and settle in.

I'll start with the pattern, Simplicity 1080.  I'll go over some things that I think a lot of experienced seamstresses will know already, but just in case, let's talk about the pattern.  Always look at the line art when considering a pattern.  The sample on the front is not always a good indication of what the finished product will look like, particularly if it is an artist's rendering and not a photograph. Garment samples for pattern companies tend to be made for size 2 and the Big Four pattern companies build in a lot of ease to their printed patterns (a frustrating feature if you are used to indie or vintage patterns where the pattern measurements and finished measurements line up more exactly).  I think the exception to that rule is Gertie's Butterick patterns, which appear to fit like her book patterns, which is to say, true to measurement.  I find her patterns correspond more directly to reality.

If you look at the pattern envelope back, you will find the measurements.  The first rule of sewing for yourself is Know Thy Measurements.  Take a flexible tape measure and take your upper bust, mid-bust, and lower bust measurements, along with your natural waist (let the tape settle into place around your middle--it is usually an inch or two above the belly button), upper and lower hip (about 7-9" below your waist, and then about where your crutch is).  If you have someone to help measure you, it is also helpful to have your back neck-to-waist measurement, shoulder to shoulder measurement, as well as your rise and inseam, but not for this pattern.  Then decide which size you will want to cut. 

A small note: do not invest a lot of energy into the number on the tape--it is just a number, and it is yours.  Own it, be comfortable with it, be aware when it changes.  They are just numbers, not an indicator of worth.

Be sure to look at the finished garment measurement, as that can tell you a lot about ease.  Ease is how closely a garment will fit to the body.  Negative ease (found in knits) will hug the body, positive ease will fall away from the body to a greater or lesser degree, depending on how much there is built into the design and the pattern draft.

I usually look at the hip measurement first on any pattern, and then grade down from there, as I'm quite pear-shaped (narrow shoulders, small bust, larger hips).  My current measurements are 36.5-32.5-41.5 (give or take a little, depending on water retention).  I wanted something that would fit like an apron rather than a swing dress, and I could tell by the finished bust measurement that there would be a lot of ease through the body of the dress.  I also wanted it to fit well in the shoulders, so I went with my upper bust measurement (35"), which was between a small and a medium.  I decided to cut a straight medium after measuring the pattern pieces.  This pattern is printed pretty inefficiently, with all the sizes separately printed, and I accidentally cut a large for the back dress piece, but that turned out to be the right call as I carry a lot of my extra weight on my backside and needed a little extra room in the back.  At some point, I'm going to compare the two sizes to see if I could eliminate the back elastic if I went with a straight up medium.

Next is to examine the line art and see what things you will likely want to adjust.  Simplicity 1080 has a sloppily drafted back neckline that is exactly the same in the front as the back, so I knew right off the bat that I was going to want to raise that quite a bit as a low back neckline can make the shoulders too wide for my frame.  I also could tell that the extended shoulders (sometimes called kimono sleeves) weren't going to have enough upper arm coverage for my liking.  I prefer the ease of finishing a full cut-on sleeve to a kimono sleeve as well as the added ease of movement.  I also looked at the finished length, and knew that 38" wasn't nearly long enough for my taste.  I prefer 43-45" in my dresses, and 41" is really the limit to how short I'm willing to go.

So let's talk kimono sleeves.  Kimono sleeves are sleeves that are created by extending the shoulder seam past the shoulder bone, creating a little sleeve cap.  The edge then tapers into the side seam, as pictured above.  Kimono sleeves can be kind of a pain to finish, as it is difficult to get a clean edge where the sleeve comes together at the side seam.  I've figured out a few tricks for this, but as I don't make my dresses like this any longer, I'll save that for another day.  I prefer to convert my sleeves to cut-on style, which is like a kimono, in that it is still an extended shoulder seam, but different in that there is a small seam at the underside of the sleeve that connects it to the side seam.  You still have one contiguous seam at the side, but it curves out a bit, as shown.

First decide how much more you want the shoulder to be extended.  I prefer about 9" on the shoulder seam, about 9 1/2" for the sleeve opening, and about 1" overhang at the bottom.  You can draft this part yourself, but I found when I was doing it myself, I somehow could never get the back and front pattern pieces to line up and would end up trimming the sleeve or the hem trying to make them fit.  The best drafting solution I found was to use the Afternoon blouse/shift pattern (that I already owned, but it is a great pattern to have!), lay it over my Simplicity 1080, and redraw the shoulders and sleeves accordingly.  

I find drafting pesky and time-consuming enough that I generally don't do drafting, cutting, or sewing on the same days.  I like to set aside a morning for drafting, a morning for cutting, and then a morning for sewing.  It keeps me from getting overwhelmed or burned out on what I'm doing. (Plus: four small children).  I find I can work for a few hours in the mornings, but after lunch I'm pretty useless for this sort of thing.  You can probably bet the farm that if I've mentioned cutting or drafting mistakes on previous blog posts, it was because I was working on it late in the day.

The best way to redraft a pattern is to redraw it onto something else.  You can use Swedish tracing paper if you have it, but a cheaper option is to buy a roll of freezer paper at the grocery store.  It comes in a long box similar to parchment paper.  It has a shiny side and a matte side--do your drawing on the matte side.  The shiny side can be ironed directly onto the fabric if you like, and then cut out or chalked for cutting.  It is highly economical.

So start by getting a sheet of freezer paper the length you want it and lay the Simplicity 1080 pattern piece over it.  I like to use the straight edges of the paper as a guide, so I put the fold line right up on the edge so I keep everything lined up properly.  You can use painter's tape to keep everything in place, or fabric weights (I have a package of large flat washers from the hardware store that I use for this purpose).  Carefully trace around the pattern with a pen, using a long ruler or French curve to help you (if you have them).  Transfer all markings for bust tucks and pockets.  Consider whether you need to drop the bust tucks down.  The pattern is drafted for a fairly perky bust, so I found dropping the top of the tucks down about 1 1/2" was about right for my post-nursing self.  Add length if desired (I added 1 1/2" to my pattern redraft, for reference; I've gone longer and also made it as drafted, but 1 1/2" seems to be the sweet spot).  Remove original pattern piece.

Lay the Afternoon blouse pattern over it, lining up the center seams and shoulders (the fronts will not be exactly the same, but the center seam should be close, once you account for the seam allowance), then re-draw your shoulder seams and add the under sleeve curve.  Smooth out any lines to the side seam.  Cut out your new pattern piece.

For the back pattern piece, repeat the process above for the sleeves and length, using the front pattern piece as a guide to make sure all the seams line up.  Consider whether you want to raise the back neckline at all.  I cut my original pattern piece as a size large, but cut the back neckline at the XL line, since it was higher.  I made a lot of my summer dresses at that draft line, but I'm finding that I really prefer a back neckline that is about 2-2 1/2" higher than that.  Just measure up however many inches from the XL neckline, make a mark, and then draw a gentle curve to the shoulder seam, following the curve of the original cutting line.  Remove your original pattern pieces, and cut out your new pattern.

Long time readers will also know that I prefer to add elastic to my back dress piece instead of the ties on the pattern.  I find it to be more flattering to my figure, and less fussy (and long time readers will also know that I'm pretty sensitive to the "fuss-factor" in my clothing).  The best way to figure out a good placement is to lay the front pattern piece over the back, and mark where the inner bust tucks fall.  Transfer that one point to the back pattern piece, and that will become the two end points of your elastic placement.  I'll come back to it in a moment.

You can fold the pattern pieces for storage and keep them all in a gallon zip loc bag for ease of access and filing.  A comic book bag works well also.  I keep the patterns I use often in a rattan DVD storage box from IKEA.  

Now that you've got your pattern pieces (there is no need to redraft the pockets), you can use them on your fabric.  Please, please, please prewash and dry your fabric!  Cottons especially can lose yardage in the wash, and you don't want to make a dress that won't fit after one washing.  For the record, I prewash and dry all my fabric (cold wash, high spin, medium heat in the dryer), but after I've made it up, I wash on cold, and then line dry.  (Note: wool is a different beast, and there are plenty of resources about how to pretreat wool fabric)

Simplicity 1080 works up nicely in a stable medium-weight (quilt-weight) cotton, but it also works well with other fabrics like linen or rayon or lawn.  The fit and drape are very different from fabric to fabric, and I think it is a good idea to work out the fitting kinks on a fabric that is easy to work with like a stable medium cotton.  I like quilt-weight cotton for a lot of reasons, but the premium ones don't wrinkle much, drape well, press well, handle nicely on almost any needle size, and don't require a lot of concentration or special seam finishes.  

The basic construction order that I've found works best is to chalk the fabric using the pattern and washer weights, cut out the fabric, pin the tucks, mark the elastic points with pins, and mark the pocket edge points with pins.  I then fold everything carefully into a plastic project bag (a gallon zip lock works well) with the bias tape I plan to use, and the elastic, if I have some that is pre-cut.  I sometimes cut dresses in an assembly line like this.

When I'm ready to sew it up, I start with the pockets.  I do the facing first, then the top-stitching on the facing.  I've long dispensed with the bias tape edge on the pocket, and now just use a hot steamy iron to press the edges to the inside of the pocket.  (If you are using a light weight fabric like lawn or challis, I recommend to use double thickness of fabric on the pockets so they will be sturdy enough for keys or a phone; use a single layer for the pocket facing)

Sew the bust tucks, press them toward the middle, then pin the pockets to the dress using the pinned pocket edge points as guides.  Use lots of pins to keep your pocket in place while sewing!  Make sure the pocket is flat on the fabric, using a steamy iron if necessary.  Sew around the edge of the pocket using the right edge of your presser foot as a guide (line up the pocket edge and the presser foot).  Sew a small triangle into each pocket corner for stability--see photo for example (this is a new trick I just figured out!)  Set front dress piece aside.

Next, sew the elastic onto the back piece.  Cut a length of 1/4" elastic about 3" short of the length between the pins.  I generally just lay the elastic between the pins and cut 1 1/2" short on either side.  Pin the elastic using the pins.  Set your machine to a wide zig-zag stitch.  

Put the fabric in with the elastic coming out toward you, and set a few stitches into one end.  Make sure your needle is sunk into the elastic, then pull the fabric and elastic taut, and zig-zag down the line of elastic.  Set a few back stitches at the end, and cut your thread.  Remove pins.

 

Pin and sew the shoulder seams next, and the press.  I like to press the shoulder seams toward the back, and depending on the fabric, sometimes I sew them down--see photo.  

It does make for a visible seam on the outside, but it keeps everything neat on the inside.  (The instructions have you finish the shoulder seams differently, but I find that to be quite fussy and unnecessary).  

If you are working with a fabric prone to fraying, zig-zag the edges of your fabric before sewing.  I generally pink the edges when I cut everything out, but some fabrics, like loose linen, or rayon, need a little additional seam finishing like a zig-zagged edge.  If you choose to French the shoulder seam, make sure you add a bit more seam allowance when you are cutting out, as the seam allowance on the shoulder is a scant 3/8".

Pin and sew one side seam, going over the curve of the under sleeve several times to reinforce it.  Clip the curves (make sure you don't clip your seam!)  The side seam allowances are 5/8".  

Press the seam allowance to the back.  Pin and sew the other side seam, press the seam allowance to the back.  Then begin applying bias tape.

There are many great online tutorials on how to apply bias tape (I like Rochelle's), so I won't repeat that here, but I will say,  you need 1/2" single fold bias tape for the easiest application.  Modern bias is a poly-cotton mix, but there are plenty of etsy sellers with vintage bias tape that has a higher cotton content, or is all cotton.  

Vintage bias tape just as good as the modern, and sometimes better!  I prefer it to the modern, frankly.  All bias tape comes in a wide variety of colors, but think about what will show and where, and whether you want high contrast on the sleeves or hem.  You can also make your own out of the fabric you are working with, but I don't have the right size cutting surface to do so easily, so I generally don't bother with it.  You can also do a visible bias finish, as on my Pincushion dress, but the application is different.  Almost all my dresses have an invisible bias finish.

I generally just lap the edge of the bias tape, since it will be on the inside, and I find connecting the seams at the end to be a bit aggravating.  A visible bias finish requires connecting the seams, however, and it is a useful skill to know.  The Colette blog has a decent tutorial on how, plus there are many other online tutorials.

Once you've finished with your bias tape, press all the edges for a clean finish, and your new dress is ready to wear!

So here's mine:

I'm calling this the Paintbrush dress.  The fabric had that somewhere in the title, and I think it is apt.  It is a straight-up premium quilting cotton from Joann fabrics, bought on a sale at the end of June.

It sewed up beautifully, but was very different from the linen Lily Pad dress!  It also fits slightly differently through the back, but it's still a good fit.

Made ye old kangaroo pocket again--it is kind of my lazy sewing go-to as it goes so much faster than the faced tucked pockets that come with the dress pattern.  It also works nicely on a busy print like this one.

I guess I've got enough color now to wear a white dress.  I don't get much more than this--I just burn and peel and burn again.  I'm trying to be smarter about sun protection, but I'm allergic to almost every sunscreen, so it is tricky.  I did find a jaunty straw fedora for $10 in CVS yesterday, at least I have a brimmed hat that fits me now.

I love all the colors in this dress--it will accessorize nicely with a lot of things.

Just the facts:

Paintbrush dress: Simplicity 1080 (redrafted), Koko fabric from Joann.com, bias tape, elastic

Earrings: CVS

Necklace: thrifted

Shoes: saltwaters

Yarn Along: Beauty and the Beast among the Lily Pads

~making~

I finished one of the two dresses I wrote about last week.  (I made the second dress this morning and remembered to take some construction/drafting photos, so I'm hoping to write up a little Dottie Angel tips and tricks post later this week.)

I thought at the beginning of this rotation already that I would like to have a second linen dress (my Nike dress from last year remains a great warm-weather dress, despite the wonky hem) but I couldn't justify making another dress for the summer.  Plus I was on a self-imposed fabric shopping ban.  

But then I found some holes in my closet, and decided I could spring for some linen.  I did a bit of casting around before I happened across this length at Mood.  I almost never look at their site, because I find it is mostly out of my price range, and the sheer amount of listings you have to sift through is overwhelming, but this print jumped out at me almost right away.

It is a nice saturated print, but much larger scale than I usually go for.  But I like it!  And the dress came out well, if I do say so myself.  It was just the thing after the chaotic June I had.  A little palette cleanser, if you will.

The folks at Mood sent along this little tag with my fabric, and I admit, I got a little geeky pleasure in sewing it into the back neckline of the dress.  It makes me smile every time I look at it.  Vogue patterns used to come with similar tag that said "Vogue Patterns, an original" or something to that effect.

 

The weave of the linen was somewhat loose, so I was pretty careful while cutting, and made sure to keep it as steady as possible while sewing.  I zig-zagged all the visible seam allowances, in addition to pinking, and figured out a little trick to finish the clipped curves on the sleeve seam, so I'm pleased with that.  (It is similar to what Esther describes here, but without serging)

I did some very careful pattern matching on the kangaroo pocket so that it wouldn't disrupt the pattern at all.  I figured with such a large scale print, that if I didn't, it would stand out more than I wanted it too.  I think it works. 

I did have to decide about the thread, however.  When working with a high contrast fabric (dark print against a light background or vice versa) there is always the problem of what color thread to use--do you match the background or the printing?  I choose to go with the printing in this case, as I felt that light thread would really show, and create more contrast than I really wanted.  

It meant that I have slightly more green thread showing on the pocket and around the sleeves than I meant to, but it doesn't show up that much at a distance.

The linen is handling nicely in the heat, and not even wrinkling that much, so I'll call it a win!

Just the facts: Simplicity 1080 (redrafted), Mood printed linen, bias tape, elastic

~knitting/reading~

I am working on my husband's cowl this week, so nothing too exciting.  I'm on the second ball, so I just have to work my way through it and then seam the thing.

I skimmed through the second half of Kolyma Tales and then put it on the shelf--I got the general idea, and frankly, the book was really dragging me down.  I feel a strong sense that I have to read this stuff to bear witness to it in some way, but sometimes there is just so much suffering that I can take before it starts to affect me.

For a mental break, I picked up a childhood favorite and read it in a day and a half--Beauty by Robin McKinley.  I've not read it for a while and it was fun to read it again.  It is a fanciful re-telling of Beauty and the Beast.  I read a whole bunch of her books a few years ago, including her wonderful retelling of Sleeping Beauty and thoroughly enjoyed them.  Beauty gave me some breathing space and I picked up War and Peace and Secondhand Time again after I finished it.  Dessert before fruit, perhaps?

~watching~

I watched Testament of Youth over several naptimes and ended up liking it quite a bit.  It took me a while to get invested in the characters, but I really like the main actress, and I'm now very eager for The Light Between the Oceans to come out.  I have that book set aside to take with me on a trip later this summer.

Linking with Ginny for Yarn Along!